Earth Science — Earth & Human Activity | Unit 2, Lesson 4
📚 Grade: Kindergarten⏱️ Duration: 30–45 minutes🌍 Subject: Earth Science — Earth & Human Activity🧰 Kit Lesson: No
🌲 → 🏗️ → 🌳
Humans can tear down forests — but we can also plant new trees. Our choices matter!
📋 NGSS Standard: K-ESS3-3 — Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things in the local environment.
🎯 Learning Objective
Students will investigate humans Change the Earth, make observations during the lesson activity, and explain what they learned using evidence from the lesson.
🎯 The Big Idea
Humans are incredibly powerful. We can cut down forests, drain swamps, dam rivers, and build cities where meadows once were. But we also have the intelligence and tools to fix problems — to plant trees, clean rivers, protect habitats, and restore what we damaged. Every human choice about land, water, and resources has a consequence. The good news: we can make better choices!
🔬 The Science
Humans change the environment in many ways, both harmful and helpful:
Deforestation — cutting trees destroys animal habitats, increases flooding (trees absorb rain), and releases carbon dioxide
Pollution — chemicals and trash in water harm fish and other water animals
Development — building roads and buildings replaces natural land
Farming — necessary to feed people, but replaces wild habitats
Conservation — protecting and restoring natural areas
Reforestation — planting new trees where forests were lost
Clean-up efforts — removing pollution and trash from waterways and land
The three scenario descriptions below (or draw simple pictures together)
Paper for drawing
Crayons or markers
Worksheet (included)
🔬 The Three Scenarios — Before & After
🚗 Scenario 1: Forest → Parking Lot
🌲🌲🌲 BEFORE Forest with deer, birds, and foxes
→
🚗🚗🚗 AFTER Parking lot with no animals
What happened? Animals lost their homes. Rain that used to soak into soil under trees now runs off pavement, causing more flooding. No trees = less oxygen, less shade, hotter temperatures nearby.
Is this helpful or harmful? 🔴 Harmful to wildlife and the environment.
🦦 Scenario 2: Polluted River → Clean River
🏭🐟 BEFORE Factory dumping waste, fish dying
→
🦦💧🐟 AFTER Clean river, fish return, otters come back
What happened? When people stopped the pollution and cleaned the river, life returned! Fish populations recovered. Birds that eat fish came back. Otters returned. River cleanup is a powerful human action that helps nature.
Is this helpful or harmful? 🟢 Helpful — humans fixed what humans broke!
🌾 Scenario 3: Prairie → Farm
🦬🌾🦅 BEFORE Prairie with bison, prairie dogs, hawks
→
🚜🌽🥕 AFTER Farm growing food for people
What happened? This one is complicated! Farms feed people — that's important. But the farm replaced wild habitat. Prairie animals lost their home. This is called a trade-off: something good (food for people) came at a cost (habitat for wildlife).
Is this helpful or harmful? 🟡 Complex — it depends on who you are (a person or a prairie dog!).
🔬 Let's Get Started
Step 1 — Introduce the Three Scenarios (10 min)
Read and discuss each scenario with your students. For each one, ask: "Who was helped? Who was hurt? Could humans have done it differently?"
Step 2 — Draw Your Neighborhood (10 min)
Ask students: "What was your neighborhood like before people built it? What was there before houses and roads?" Help them imagine: maybe a forest, a meadow, wetlands, or a prairie. Have each student draw their neighborhood — then draw what they think it looked like before people changed it. (A simple two-panel drawing: BEFORE / NOW)
Step 3 — Think of One Human Change That HELPED (5–8 min)
Challenge: "Can you think of a way humans changed the environment for the BETTER near where you live?" Use the discussion questions to prompt ideas. Then complete the worksheet.
Step 4 — Complete the Worksheet (10 min)
Students evaluate the three scenarios and draw one way humans help the environment. They make a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" judgment for each scenario (with space for "complicated"!).
💬 Discussion Questions
🗣️ Talk about these together:
Name 3 ways humans change the Earth. Which ones are helpful? Which are harmful?
If a parking lot replaces a forest, where do the animals go?
Can you think of a way humans have changed the environment for the BETTER?
If you were building a town, what would you do to protect the animals that already live there?
Why do humans sometimes make choices that hurt the environment even when they know it's harmful?
💡 Suggested answer — humans changing the environment for the better:
Yes! There are many examples of humans helping nature. Wetland restoration returns drained swamps to life, filtering water and providing habitat. Planting trees (reforestation) restores forests lost to cutting. Creating wildlife corridors — green pathways between parks — lets animals travel safely between habitats. Cleaning up rivers and beaches brings back fish, birds, and other wildlife. Banning DDT (a chemical pesticide) saved the bald eagle from extinction in the 1970s. Creating national parks protects millions of acres of wild land. Humans cause problems, but we also have the intelligence and tools to fix them. The key is choosing to use those tools!
🚀 Extensions
🌳 Tree planting: Plant a tree or native plant in your yard. Talk about what habitat it will create for insects, birds, and other wildlife over time.
📸 Google Earth time-lapse: Look up your neighborhood on Google Earth and use the historical imagery feature to see how it's changed over decades.
🦅 Bald eagle story: Research how banning DDT saved the bald eagle. In 1963, only 417 nesting pairs remained in the US. Today there are over 9,000! This is a powerful story of humans fixing a human-caused problem.
📚 Read aloud:"The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss (classic environmental message) or "The Tree Lady" by H. Joseph Hopkins
👩🏫 Parent/Teacher Notes
Age-appropriate complexity: Kindergartners can absolutely handle "this is harmful" and "this is helpful," but the farm scenario introduces nuance. It's okay to say "this is complicated — it helped people AND hurt animals." That's real science thinking.
Avoid doom and gloom: While it's important for kids to know that humans cause environmental problems, the most important message is ALSO that humans can fix those problems. End every discussion on human agency and hope.
Connection to K-ESS3-3: This standard asks students to communicate solutions that reduce human impact on the environment. The three scenarios directly address identifying human changes and evaluating their impact. The "HELPS / HURTS / COMPLICATED" exercise and the drawing of one helpful human action are the "communicate solutions" performance expectation in action.
Local context: If possible, find a local example — a park that was restored, a river cleanup, or a community garden that replaced an empty lot. Local examples make the concept real and tangible.
For each change, circle: HELPS, HURTS, or COMPLICATED
Human Change
Your Vote
Who is affected?
🌲→🚗 Forest turned into parking lot
HELPS HURTS COMPLICATED
🏭→🦦 Cleaning up a polluted river
HELPS HURTS COMPLICATED
🌾→🚜 Prairie turned into a farm
HELPS HURTS COMPLICATED
🌳 Planting trees in a neighborhood
HELPS HURTS COMPLICATED
✏️ Draw One Way Humans Help the Environment
In my drawing, humans are helping by: _____________________________________________
🏡 Before & Now — My Neighborhood
BEFORE people built here:
NOW:
🔑 PARENT ANSWER KEY — Detach before giving worksheet to students
Scenario Evaluations
🌲→🚗 Forest → Parking Lot: HURTS. Animals lose habitat. Water runoff increases (parking lots can't absorb rain like forests can). Less oxygen produced. More heat absorbed (asphalt gets very hot).
🏭→🦦 Cleaning up a polluted river: HELPS. Removing pollution allows fish, water insects, birds, and mammals (like otters and beavers) to return. Clean water is healthier for downstream communities too.
🌾→🚜 Prairie → Farm: COMPLICATED. Farms feed people — essential! But they replace wild prairie habitat. Bison, prairie dogs, grassland birds, and pollinators lose their home. The best answer acknowledges both sides.
🌳 Planting trees: HELPS. Trees provide habitat for birds and insects, absorb carbon dioxide, produce oxygen, provide shade (cooling), hold soil in place (preventing erosion), and absorb rainwater (reducing flooding).
✅ What Success Looks Like
Student can describe at least 3 ways humans change the Earth.
Student can evaluate whether each change is helpful, harmful, or complex — and explain why.
Student can name at least one way humans have helped the environment.
